"Most Under-Rated Ruleset?" Topic

Which miniature wargaming ruleset doesn't get the full recognition it deserves?

Man, you are opening a can of worms Mr Editor!!!

For me:

All the Steve Jackson games I grew up with. (EG: Kung Fu 2100)
The Sorcerer's Cave

Or do you mean current sets?

I'll add Steve Jackson's "Melee."

Might of Arms.

All the Steve Jackson games I grew up with. (EG: Kung Fu 2100)
The Sorcerer's Cave

I mean miniature wargaming rules, or at least boardgames that work well with miniatures.

Or do you mean current sets?

Not limited to current sets. Could include a pioneering ruleset that has been forgotten…

Checkers. Too many faux intellectuals seem to think that playing chess is superior.

Column, line, and square. I know you need a lot of figures and a large table, but I think the mechanics are great, and to me, that's what I always thought a Napoleonics battle looked like. Attacking villages is a little wonky, but you can't have everything!

+1 cavcrazy

Thank you for the encouragement, cavcrazy. I'll be running a CLS game in Indy in May. We're working on the "atacking villages" problem, and we might have it fixed.

You know, mostly, the problem with under-rated rules is that no one's ever heard of them, which makes for tricky polling. Let me give a few examples:
In horse & musket, I've been known to use a very early Phil Barker set called "Napoleonic Wars--Birmingham Style" for AWI. (At least it's "P. Barker." Phil Barker told me he didn't remember it, but that it was probably his.) It's from an old Wargamers' Newsletter.
For proper Napoleonics, it's sometimes "Charge! for Dummies" by Aelred Glidden, out of an old MWAN.
In ACW, I go to another MWAN set, Stafford's "Gettysburg for the Fifth Grade."
For microscale Napoleonics, I use Wesencraft's "Corps Level Game" from his Practical Wargaming for Fun.
And Peter Young's "Charge!" shows up, lightly modified. (Still working on the melee system.) But I'm not sure that one counts as "under-rated.

All five are herby nominated, but I bet no one else on TMP has heard of the first three. That's what happens when you're really under-rated.

I think I ended up playing lots of "under the radar" games that give me pleasure but don't seem to get a lot of press:
"War & Conquest" for my ancients armies
"Soldiers of God" for crusades amd sometimes Vikings v Saxons
"Nuts!" for WWII skirmish

King of the Battlefield, for 18th Century warfare.

Field of Battle 3Ed. It is a derivative of Piquet, so gets lumped in with marmite thoughts.

It allows big battles (I have only played Napoleonics) that read like a historical account.

And my go to for 6mm and 2mm SYW--"From Marlborough to Frederick" by Jeremy Jarvis (Practical Wargamer, Volume 11, Number 2.)

Once, wargame magazines were filled with short rules for this or that period. Now "real" rules are sold independently at many times the length, with separate army lists and revised editions as soon as all the army lists are out. I once had a dream of publishing a loose-leaf binder of classic rules which took up no more than four pages, but the copyright problems were insurmountable. Nothing to keep everyone from doing his own, though.

Mr. Lincoln's War
They Died For Glory

Mine!

Okay, okay. Other than my own, for me Warmaster (including Warmaster Ancients and other variants) is under-rated, at least now. I love the game, but you don't see it that much, despite having lots of fans at one time.

Battlegroup WW2. Not just a line 'em up and flail away WW2 game. Takes some thinking and planning, it does.

The Rules According to Ral.

Rivets (1977) — board game that plays well with minis and easily taken off the hex grid.

@79thPA, yes Melee is a superb skirmish game!

Cry Havoc Boardgame works well with 15mm figures on the map boards. Played games in the past with a couple hundred figures and a small castle.

Like Vonbrocher I have enjoyed the Cry Havoc systems ever since 1983. As he said the maps work great for 15mm. I have also used the maps for other eras as well.

Panzertruppe, Version M4A1.
An earlier version appeared in, surprise, MWAN. Last available on Wargame Vault.
The author donated all of his vast income from this project to charity.
A great, workman set of rules for WW2 armor, but seamlessly incorporates infantry, artillery, airstrikes and all of the oddball weapons we are so fond of!
We actually prefer it over Bolt Action!

Might of Arms
The original "Rally 'Round The Flag" by Battleline Games (later became Yaquinto)

Crossfire.
While not perfect, and many of the issues have been addressed.
But it was a set of rules that made me.feel like actual accounts of combat.

Rezolution. Fun cyberpunk system with fighting and hacking that never caught on.

Robert please provide us with a report after your CLS games in May. I would be interested in your approach regarding villages.

I will second Crossfire.
I also think that Command Decision: Test of Battle (CD IV) fell off quickly. I think it is a great game, moves quickly, and I feel the best HE effects of any WW II game that I have played. I think the CD:ToB decline was largely driven by a lack of published scenarios of the Eastern Front by the game publisher

And this is another one of the polls where the results will be inverted. The truly under-rated ones will get less votes!

Panzer War

Wolfhag

+1 Advocate.
I love King of the Battlefield.

Have you tried his Emperor of the Battlefield for Napoleonic warfare?

Nuts!

Field of Battle and Crossfire. FOB is probably one of the best rule sets I have ever played. Crossfire is another very good set.

Thanks.

John

Hey You, I can't post images, and have no blog to which I can post a link. Give me an e-mail address or become a paid member, and I can send you the whole shooting match. But the general principle is that you make it harder to shoot people out of a village and easier to melee them out.

Might of Arms
Crossfire
To the Strongest

Knights and Magick

FUBAR